Olbermann, Scarborough and watchdog journalism

Posted 2 years, 6 months ago.

By Sean Blanda

In the past month, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Joe Scarborough were both suspended for making campaign contributions. Media pundits everywhere are debating what the rise of pundits like Olbermann mean to journalism’s role in as our government’s watchdog.

Ted Koppel, former Nightline host and board member of the Peter Jennings Project, believes that the rise of political pundits could mean danger for our democracy:

The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement.

Read the rest at the Washington Post.